The Catholic Church and pedophilia

In the ask Dr. Bob thread, there was much academic discussion of damage caused by pedophilia. I thought I should give an additional viewpoint.

There is a man, let's call him Phyllis, who had four children with his wife and then they had an ugly divorce. In the settlement, she got full custody of the kids and Phyllis had them for a weekend twice a month, and two weeks in the summer. Phyllis had a job as an over the road truck driver and made a good buck, so he kept up with the child support. I married Phyllis' ex-wife six years after they split up.

He also took the kids to Catholic church in the small town he lived in every time he had them and was very active in his church. He moved in with his mom after the divorce and kept seeing the "other woman", let's call her Zelda, who inspired the divorce in the first place. She had 3 kids of her own. Phyllis and Zelda were dating for 8 years, and finally decided to get a house together.

About 2 months after they moved in together, on Dec. 23rd, Phyllis stayed home, and Zelda's 10 year old daughter had the day off of school. It turned out that this was the first time he was alone with any 10 year old girl in many years and he convinced the little girl to pose for some pictures--sans clothing.

A couple hours later, she told my 15 year old stepdaughter (Phyllis' biological daughter) what had happened in an emotional state, crying and asking if she had done something wrong.

When my wife and I were told of it, we immediately called Zelda, the grandparents (Zelda's mom and dad). We let Phyllis know that we knew what had happened, and since he did not turn himself in after 2 days, I went to the small town he lives in and reported him to the police.

By the time they went to investigate, there were no images on the camera he used, and they eventually dropped the case because it was the little girls word against his, and he denied it. About 2 years later, Phyllis and Zelda were married, and the poor little girl was forced to live in the house of the man who did this to her.

All of this was around 8 years ago. The little girl moved out right after her 18th birthday and just had her first child with her boyfriend. My stepkids didn't see their father for about 3 years, but eventually could not keep themselves from him and the oldest boy now lives with him. The other three mostly keep their distance. Phyllis' actions ruined at least 15 lives in many different and disparate ways, and Zelda's looking the other way only made it worse.

I'm not going back into my old research on pedophiles, but here is some of what I learned:

Recidivism (repeat offences) vary according to the sex and age of child they are attracted to, but most of them have a higher than 50% recidivism rate, and none of them are 0%. So it is fair to treat a pedophile as a potential threat to children for their entire lives.

Many pedophiles are caught after multiple offences, many years between them. The weird young uncle that everyone knows has a problem goes off and lives on his own for a couple of decades. He comes back and the memories are faded. Nieces and nephews who have not been properly warned have kids of their own, and a need for babysitters. Uncle Squirrelly happens to have some time on his hands and is happy to help.

Pedos are attracted to a particular age and sex, and are not as attracted to anything outside of that. So if they are into 8 year old boys, an 11 year old just won't do.

Without rock solid evidence, everything is difficult to prove. If you ever encounter an instance of sexual activity used on a child, act immediately with no hesitation.

Writing this post was difficult, I have never put it in writing like this before. I am sitting here crying right now. The story is unfortunately true, and the bullet points are important to anyone who works with kids, or needs information on pedophilia.

Phyllis was very tight with his church, and I believe he went to counselling with them after the incident. I am quite sure that his priest knows whats up and that Phyllis has been absolved of his sins. But in a twist that seems like it should be fiction, I just found out from my stepson that Phyllis retired from truck driving, and is now the janitor of the high school in the small town he lives in. If it weren't for my 3rd point above, I would have went back down to that town and fucked up his life.

I am also divorced from the mom (about 5 years now), although I am no longer officially anything to my stepchildren, I treat them as if they are my own. They are all grown, all of them were seriously affected by this incident, and there are effects to this day.

Replies to This Discussion

Off-topic: I don't think of the Catholic Church as a company but rather as the world's oldest government. The "adherents" are just being very patriotic - in a scary way. After all, they will put their patriotism towards the Church before the country they live in.

@Ward - I think there are men in the vatican who wield a lot of power - I have seen archbishops here in Australia, who built apartments at the vatican - at their cost - of $23 million - there lifestyle is amazing, for a religion that is supposedly looking after it's flock, of which a large proportion are very poor. The power they yield over millions of people, who are uneducated and superstitious, is extraordinary, but it is power. Why hide how much money is in the vatican bank, if there is nothing to hide. Oh, yes, it is a business.

My friend Bob, says the reason is, that no bank publicly exposes how much money they have, and how much profit they make, which is blatantly untrue. The banks in Australia every three months, say how much profit they are making. One vatican banker committed suicide, or was he murdered. Why.

The vatican bank is under investigation for having mafia connections and money laundering. Not a good look for the catholic religion.

The bank is named Institute for Religious Works - it's turning out to be not quite so religious.

Then there is celibacy - the church wanted to keep it's property intact, not wanting a priests children to inherit - which is a furphy - the property belongs to the church, no inheritance - so for that reason, they decree celibacy is in - and it is bad for business, no matter how one looks at it. The number of priests now going into the church is dwindling, they want to have a family, a normal life, and that is not allowed for reason of property. Daft.

The church relies on people like Bob, to prop up and become apologists for the church, the church relies on all these faithful people, the naive and the innocent.

The numbers of catholics in western countries are dwindling at a fast rate, they have no trust in the catholic church.

The men at the vatican now exactly what they are doing - but if it doesn't change the celibacy rules, which I think will happen in the next twenty years, their problems with women in the hierarchy, their problem with Gays marrying, the catholic religion will implode.

Educated catholics ignore the teachings of the church, contraception, gay marriage, women in the hierarchy, it is the grass root society that will change the church, 'cause if the church doesn't change, they will go the way of the dinosaur.

Well, AFAIK the people of South and Central America are largely Catholic and don't question it much at all. I think they will help support it for at least 15-20 years but, yes, the Church will need to make changes to survive. I suspect they will but very slowly and with much obfuscation.

As for the business or government thing - not really arguing it - just causal about it. I realized I don't see it as a business because I don't see many of today's corporate organizations as businesses. I grew up with a business being something that employed people and sold a product or offered a service. Today's corporate organizations use people and sell ideas (of a product or of a service) all to drain money from hard working people to siphon it off to parasites (rich people).

But even growing up governments were always a bit questionable. So, I think of the Church more as a government but it does very much match the paradigm of today's corporate organizations.

@Milos - Exactly - and the really sad thing is that Bob doesn't realize the damage he is doing to his religion by deflection and ignoring questions. His line of answering made me realize how the catholic church has got away with pedophilia for so long, without being questioned - truly horrific.

@Bob - Celibate priests have been around so long in the Roman Rite that the system is deeply embedded economically.

Very true - Bob - it is all about the money. No matter the repercussions to the people who love their religion - no matter what the consequences are world wide - it is all about the money. Morals, ethics, all fall to the wayside. How sad is that.

The following is a Youtube video - this is what happens when a good man fights the church, and wants to do the right thing by his church -

FATHER TOM DOYLE, DOMINICAN PRIEST: It's certainly not going to go away. It's not going to go away, and I think it's the beginning - or it's along the way - of a serious change for the institutional Church, especially for the ruling elite in the Vatican. It's definitely a moment of truth, and among other things it's a sign that the world, the society, is no longer going to show the deference to the Vatican, to the Pope, that they always expected. This is a time for accountability.